1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a consumable component sorting system, an information managing apparatus, a component managing apparatus, a control method, and a program for implementing the control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, an electrophotographic image forming apparatus performs image formation by electrostatically transferring an image developed from a latent image formed on a photosensitive member as an image bearing member, onto a transfer material (sheet), and then heating and pressing the transfer material by a fixing unit to fix the image.
Among the components mounted in the image forming apparatus, particularly ones involved in the operations of an image forming process are configured to be exchangeable as consumable components. Typical consumable components include a photosensitive drum as an image bearing member, a transfer roller as a component of a transfer unit, and a fixing roller as a component of the fixing unit. Timing for exchanging a consumable component is generally set with reference to a predetermined number of sheets to be output for image forming operation.
In recent years, a system called an SCM (Supply Chain Management) system has been under development. The SCM system implements a management method which makes it possible to integrate commodity supply systems including an order placement/reception system, a material/component procurement system, a production system, a product delivery system, and so on, and perform centralized management of the commodity supply systems by using IT (information technology), to thereby increase a company's profit.
On the other hand, among image forming apparatuses, an increasing number of copying machines have been developed from stand-alone machines into digital multifunction machines having a function of establishing connection to a remote communication network, such as a LAN (see e.g. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2000-332934).
The service lives of many of the consumable components used in the above-mentioned ectrophotographic image forming apparatus largely vary depending on the temperature and humidity of an environment in which the apparatus is installed, the type of transfer materials for use in image formation, the density of images formed on the transfer materials, and so forth. For this reason, degradation of image quality or the like problem can occur before arrival of exchange timing set for each consumable component. In this case, a user of the image forming apparatus is forced to cope with a problem with each consumable component (e.g. by advancing the exchange timing).
However, when the user of the image forming apparatus is to cope with a problem with each consumable component as mentioned above, the number of times of dispatch of a service person by the manufacturer or the like of the image forming apparatus increases, which causes an increase in cost both on the user side and the manufacturer side. Further, stoppage time of the image forming apparatus required for consumable component exchange increases, which causes significant efficiency degradation.
With a view to solving the above-mentioned problems, if exchange timing for each consumable component is so set as to be satisfactory for all environments for installation of an image forming apparatus, exchange timings for some consumable components are unnecessarily advanced. More specifically, in an image forming apparatus in use in a relatively low-load environment, consumable components that are still usable are exchanged earlier than required. This costs the user more than necessary. Further, since it is required to prepare numerous components for replacement, environmental load increases.
A manufacturer or a management company can also take measures to solve the above-mentioned problems by preparing a plurality of consumable components of different kinds suitable for installation environments specific to respective image forming apparatuses. In this case, however, it is predicted that cost will increase due to elongation of a time period required for development of an image forming apparatus and necessity of component management. Therefore, this method also costs the user more than necessary, and an increase in environmental load due to necessity of numerous components for replacement.